


MidSummer's Night

by hellotweetygirl



Category: SHINee
Genre: Candles, Fluff, Friendship, M/M, cute boys being cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-04 22:31:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14030241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellotweetygirl/pseuds/hellotweetygirl
Summary: Taemin needs a shopping buddy and when shopping in the wee hours of the morning who better to accompany him than Jonghyun?





	MidSummer's Night

**Author's Note:**

> This idea has been in my book for the last 6-8 months and I began writing it the beginning of December and haven’t been able to pick it back up until now. I really really wanted to finish it because it’s my first jongtae !! and it’s a happy fic, and I hope you all are able to be happy reading it! Thank you to @onthighsbelongtotaemin for the awesome beta! Bonus points to anyone who can tell me where the title is from! Also, this fic's time setting is January 2017, right before the FIVE Arena Tour in Japan.

Shopping with Taemin is like shopping with a five year old. Taemin knows this. His friends know this. His members know this. Which is why he almost always shops alone and unhindered, an overeager bounce taking him from store to store and impulse racking up a stream of purchases in his wake.

This is also why it takes him forty-five minutes of begging to convince Jonghyun, who was his last choice in a long line of contacts that refused, to come out and play with him.

The deal comes with conditions.

Companionship comes at a price and Jonghyun has no problem extracting it from him. _Whatever._ He’ll deal with it as he goes. Right now he’s eagerly waiting to hear the growl of Jjong’s Lambo and go shooting off to the sprawling shopping complex.

He hears him before he sees him and the car has barely rolled to a stop before he’s pulling on the handle and sliding into the cool leather.

“Finally! I was beginning to think you bailed on me and went back to bed.”

Jonghyun tilted his head and gave him a look of withering proportions. “I was warm and comfortable and it’s a good thing that the sun has already gone down or else I would have. You better feed me well.”

Taemin’s laughter is as smooth as Jonghyun’s turn back into the flow of traffic, and he smacks at his arm with a grin, “Sure hyung, sure.”

With the speed of the supercar gliding through the sparse traffic no time passes before they arrive at their destination. They sneak into one of the lesser used side entrances of the building and Taemin makes for the nearest billboard map that will tell him where he wants to avoid and where are must visit destinations of the night.

Jjong fidgets by his side his phone in hand and his lips twisted up as he glances between the map and the glowing device. _That’s weird._ Taemin shakes off the perplexion at Jjong’s behavior and mentally makes his list. He lightly smacks his companion’s elbow.

“C’mon. This way.” Taemin sets off without looking back but can hear Jjong’s drowsy, “Your wish is my command!”, before he begins trotting obediently behind him and Taemin smiles. It’s nice to just have Jjong trust him and go along with whatever he wants. It’s not always that the guys let him be in charge but with Jjong it’s always been easy, Jjong lets him have his own mind and do what pleases him without a lot of fuss and he appreciates that.

They walk for a few minutes in the nearly empty building before finding the first store, which is equally empty and he breathes a sigh of relief. This is why he likes shopping after midnight. No crowds of shoppers, and relative anonymity amongst the weirdos that are out buying sandals, and perfume, and sports equipment in the wee hours of the morning. He was in good company.

He had picked good company too he congratulated himself. Jonghyun was equal parts disinterested in his erratic wonderings as they covered the mall, and relatively obliging with his approval of Taemin’s choices as he selected new pieces of clothing. Their busy time of the year was coming up and there would be lots of travel between home and Japan during their packed arena tour schedule and Taemin wanted to be comfortable even if he was forced to be fashionable.

“How about this?” Taemin held out a brightly colored shirt with large blocks of color in Tetris like arrangement. Jjong raised his eyebrows, unimpressed. “Okay, fine,” he grumbled, “maybe not that one.”

Together they drifted across the store and found a display of distressed hoodies. _Perfect._ Taemin piled each of the differing colors into Jonghyun’s reluctant arms.

“These look like you’ve been wearing them since debut Taeminnie.”

“I know right?” His eyes lit and his smile beamed. Jonghyun merely shook his head at him.

As the night continued Jjong would sometimes make a suggestion for him to try somewhere in the mall he hadn’t thought of or planned on going but the older boy’s eyes were smiling and happy, having fun despite his previous reluctance to come, as he offered his suggestions so Taemin didn’t have the heart to refuse him and off they went.

They were off to the fourth such suggestion chatting and joking casually when Jjong stopped dead in his tracks. Taemin was at least fifteen feet ahead before he realized he’d lost his shopping buddy and ground to a halt, shopping bags swinging widely, as he looped around and came to stand back in front of Jonghyun. 

“What’s up pup?”

“Mmmmmm,” Jonghyun hummed, “Let’s go here.” Taemin looked at the tilted head and large eyes. He followed the cutely pointing finger to the overly large sign hanging over them that proclaimed that he was standing in front of a flipping _candle store._ How in the heck did he get here? He’d purposefully planned to avoid this part of the building because he heard stories about the last time Jjong was in one of these places. _Things had happened._

Taemin’s mouth opened to protest and gaped, faltering, not wanting to go in but again not wanting to deny Jjong after he’d been such a good companion all night.

“We’re right here already. We can’t not go in Taem.”

Taemin evaluated the carefully blank face of his compatriot and decided he’d been _played._ This was his shopping trip and somehow Jonghyun had hijacked it. _What. Even._ Taemin crossed his arms and the bags went flailing again in the short space in between them.

“This is all your doing, isn’t it?”

Jonghyun straightened up and walked into the store, the smile playing at his lips saying Taemin had guessed correctly. “I don’t know what you are talking about Taeminnie,” he has the nerve to throw over his shoulder.

“Ten minutes Jjong!” he proclaims in his sternest voice before following Jonghyun into the store.

Taemin decides it’s really endearing to see his friend go shuffling from display to display along the wall and examining the labels carefully. When he finds one that intrigues him he lifts it down and cracks the top to let out a flicker of aroma. Jonghyun’s nose twitches when it’s a scent he doesn’t approve of and it gets carefully placed back on the shelf. “Just because I hate it doesn’t mean it isn’t perfect for someone else,” he explains to Taemin’s longsuffering sighs. When it’s a scent he approves of it gets waved under Taemin’s nose for a consulting evaluation. Taemin’s head is beginning to fog up with all conflicting perfumes that he’s inhaled. He groans when Jjong stacks another one in his arms. Apparently shopping buddy was a two-way street. 

“I don’t know why I’m holding all your candles?” he protested, “Like…?”

“It’s cause you’re cute. And my arms are too short to hold all of these.” Jjong informed him.

Taemin rolls his eyes. “Excuses, excuses!”

Jonghyun waves another candle under his nose and he recoils. “Oh my gosh that smells like feet! Get that away from me!”

Jonghyun just giggles at him.

Another candle is stuck under Taemin’s nose and he makes a face. Before Jjong can pull it away he grabs it back. “Hey, this one isn’t half bad.” Taemin inhales deeply again pulling in more of the warm and sharp aroma. “I actually like this one.”

The glint in Jonghyun’s eyes at his confession only mean trouble for Taemin.

“Here, let’s get a basket,” the insufferable man suggests.

Taemin takes a deep breath and lets it out noisily. Warning bells sound in his head and go unheeded.

“Ok, sure, why not.”

Ten minutes turn into twenty and twenty into forty as Jonghyun educates Taemin about candle scents and the atmosphere they create when burned. Taemin begins to wonder _just how much_ Jjong spends on candles and if customer loyalty gets any discounts in this place because there’s no way Jjong could be dropping _this much_ on something he was essentially going to light a match to. He looks between his and Jjong’s baskets and blanches.

_What the flip_ has he gotten himself into.

~~

Jonghyun rolls over in bed and his hand reached out in the almost darkness to find his incessantly ringing phone. He finds it just as it stops ringing for the second time only for it to begin afresh with the tones of Amber's _Shake That Brass_ spilling from it. He sighs, what is all so fired important for Taemin to be waking him at noon when he only arrived home at four?

Groaning, he taps the green circle and lays the phone beside him on the pillow.

“Come over.”

Jonghyun whined at what he was hearing, Taemin couldn’t possibly be serious.

“Whyyy?”

“Come over and smell my candles.”

Jonghyun’s eyes popped open at this bit of information and a smile started at the corners of his mouth. He rolls to his back and places the phone to his ear, actually wanting to pay attention to Taemin now.

“Why?”

The huff of air that Taemin releases skitters down Jonghyun’s neck. Jonghyun could hear the others annoyed mumbled noises and could easily envision the nervous habit of dissatisfaction the younger boy had picked up years earlier as the sharp thawaping of Taemin picking at his ripped jeans could be heard.

“Because there’s no one who appreciates this stuff like you do. My mother! _My mother, Jjong,_ interrogated me for ten minutes this morning about whether or not I’d bought _ten candles_ as presents for a hidden girlfriend! Are you hearing me Kim Jonghyun? _A hidden girlfriend!”_

Jonghyun couldn’t stop himself from bursting out in laughter. Poor Taemin.

“Get yourself over here Jjong. Come. Now.” Taemin whined pitifully.

“Alright, alright! I’ll come, I’ll come! This is really not my fault at all, you just have crap self-control,” Jonghyun heckled him. 

“Shut up Jjong.”

“How about you light one of them and calm down a bit before I get there, huh?” Jonghyun chuckles. He sits up and begins searching for clothes.

“I do have them lit.”

“Which one?”

“What do you mean ‘which one’, I lit all of them.”

“Oh my God, Taemin!” he gasps, “I’ll be right there!”


End file.
